Nylon is a generic designation for a family of synthetic polymers known as aliphatic polyamides, and is one of the most commonly used polymers. Nylons are condensation copolymers that may be formed by reacting a diamine and a dicarboxylic acid, so that amides are formed at both ends of each monomer. The chemical constituents of nylon include carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Types of nylons are distinguished by a numerical suffix that specifies the numbers of carbons donated by the monomers, with the number of carbons from the diamine monomer listed first, followed by the number of carbons from the diacid monomer. Several representative nylons may include nylon 6,6, nylon 6, nylon 6,9, nylon 6,12, nylon 11, nylon 12 and nylon 4,6. Therefore, the variant nylon 6,6 refers to a nylon wherein the diamine (hexamethylenediamine, IUPAC name: hexane-1,6-diamine) and the diacid (adipic acid, IUPAC name: hexanedioic acid) each donate 6 carbons to the polymer chain.
The 6-carbon commodity chemicals adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine, have global production on the order of 2.5 million and 1 million metric tons per year, respectively, with most of the produced chemicals being used as monomers in the manufacture of nylon 6,6. Currently utilized industrial processes for the manufacture of adipic acid and hexamethylenediamine utilize petrochemically derived benzene or butadiene as raw materials. Efforts to replace these petrochemically derived raw materials are ongoing, and there remains a need to provide alternative scalable approaches for commercial production of nylon 6,6 from alternative raw materials.